10/31/2026
Halloween is almost here! Once your jack-o'-lantern has finished greeting trick-or-treaters, don't automatically send it to the landfill.
Your pumpkin can have a second life.
*Compost it. Remove candles, stickers, paint, glitter and other non-compostable decorations first. Cutting or smashing the pumpkin into smaller pieces will help it break down faster.
*Save some seeds. If you grew an open-pollinated pumpkin variety, you can clean and dry seeds for planting next year. Just remember that pumpkins readily cross-pollinate, so the pumpkins you grow from saved seed may not look exactly like this year's!
*What about feeding pumpkins to wildlife? You've probably seen social-media posts encouraging people to dump old pumpkins in random woods or natural areas for animals. Don't do it. Dumping pumpkins in parks, forests or other natural areas isn't a good way to dispose of them. If you leave some plain pumpkin for wildlife on your own property, remove wax, paint, glitter and other decorations, and keep it away from roads.
Better yet, let your garden benefit from it.
Pumpkin → compost → healthier soil → next year's garden.
Now that's recycling a gardener can get behind!
The Weekly Bloom is brought to you by the Washington County Master Gardener Association—sharing research-based gardening information for our Wisconsin gardens.
